France's Wiko eyes 10% of Thai phone market in 2015
French smartphone maker Wiko aims to cash in on the rapidly expanding market in this country by selling 15 million units for a 10-per-cent share next year.
David Garcia, director of international business development at Wiko Global, said yesterday that to penetrate the local market, the company recently set up Wiko Mobile (Thailand) with SiS Distribution (Thailand), whose subsidiary Qool Distribution (Thailand) is the largest mobile-phone distributor in the country.
The joint venture started up with Bt100 million in registered capital.
Thailand is the second country in Southeast Asia after Vietnam penetrated by Wiko. It plans to go across South Asia, excluding India. It also aims to sell 50 million units by 2017.
“We aim to become a global brand, in 50 countries by next year. Now, we are already in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. We want to be in the top five smartphone brands worldwide in a couple of years. We will have 10 per cent of the market in Europe by next year,” he said.
The company aims to sell 6 million units globally this year and double that volume next year.
Somchai Sittichaisrichart, managing director of SiS Distribution (Thailand), said that according to GFK, a smartphone market research company, Thailand’s smartphone market is forecast at 12 million units this year, of which 70 per cent are priced below Bt7,500.
“The huge market opportunity for smartphones is the converted [from non-smartphone to smartphone] market, which is ranked in the mid-range to entry level of the whole market. About 40 per cent of the mobile-phone market … is in feature phones, or non-smartphones. That is our target market,” he said.
Chirawat Sitarachaiyanon, chief executive officer of Wiko Mobile (Thailand), said the company’s first move in the Thai market was to roll out seven models priced from Bt2,490-Bt7,990.
Since Wiko is a new brand, the company has set aside Bt200 million this year to build brand awareness and penetrate the market. Of the 20 Wiko models available in the world, only seven were selected for Thailand.
“We have 4,000 distributors’ outlets throughout the country as the main offline channel. We also have online channels like ShopAt7.com and Lazada.com to deliver Wiko smartphones to customers,” he said.
Eight Wiko service centres have been opened in seven provinces across the nation.
